Towson to stop baseball program?

BALTIMORE - Every since the days when it was called Maryland State Teachers College at Towson, baseball has been played on the campus.

First the Towson Knights, and now it's the Towson Tigers.

The Stadium is named after the guy who now president of the Atlanta Braves, and over the years quite a few guys have made it to the minors and even the majors. But 2013 will be the last season for mens baseball and mens soccer will go away this fall.

"I just don't understand how they could do that."

When the e-mail hit campus most folks couldn't believe it.
The athletics department will drop mens baseball and men's soccer and add men's tennis.

Tennis? A great sport but for many folks it doesn't capture the hearts of students.

Baseball first off is America's pastime if you're going to trade it for something like tennis soccer is something like more people can get into to."

"Soccer is such a big thing baseball is a huge thing especially in Maryland there's kids on scholarship come to play baseball here what are they going to do."

But the athletics department says by losing those two mens sports they'll be better able to balance men's and women's athletics.

Title nine means that there has to be an equal distribution of scholarships for men's and women's athletics.
Women's team sports are smaller and don't come close to the number of scholarships that go to men's football, lacrosse, basketball and baseball.

And with limited athletic dollars Towson U says it has to figure out a way to stay competitive and keep the balance.

Competitive ness in this sense is having as many of our sports as possible witht he maximum number of NCAA scholarship opportunities we want to be able to go and play person for person whenever we go into the NCAA.

Right now about 38 male student athletes are affected by this.
    

Students pick an athletic program because they like the coaches, the facilities and the amount of money they can get to attend a school. And the priority right now will be to figure out their future.

"They're academic careers can continue here at Towson under the same financial packages they have right now all the way through graduation if they choose to leave Towson and go to pursue an  athletic and academic career there we will help them in every way possible to find a soft landing spot."

Now there will be a public response period to talk about this. but Towson's president will take the public response, and recommendations from the new athletics task force about the move. A final decision will be made by November 1st.

That, they hope, will give them time to help students decide if they will stay at Towson with their scholarships, or go somewhere else.